TEACHERS AND STAFF

Piano || Violin and Viola || Cello || Flute || Electives & Accompanists

PIANO

Katie Hooper

(GMSI Chamber Music Coordinator) Katie maintains an active Suzuki studio in Saratoga Springs, NY. In addition to regular studio recitals, all of her students participate in a chamber festival and a Capital District Contemporary Music Recital every year. She is also the high school choral music director at The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs. She holds a BM from Ohio Wesleyan University. She has traveled extensively throughout the world and enjoys the outdoors.

Cynthia Huard (not for 2024)

Cynthia teaches at Middlebury College as well as running a Suzuki studio. She has both an MM in piano performance and an MM in early music from Indiana University, and has studied extensively in Austria. Cynthia is the Artistic Director of the Rochester Chamber Music Society. Devoted to chamber music and collaborative music making, she has performed with the Lark Quartet, chamber players of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, and the National Symphony, among others, and has met and played for "Mr. Rogers."

Renee Robbins

Mrs Robbins has been a piano teacher since 1966 and has taught Suzuki piano lessons since 1974. Her first piano student was a Navajo/Chippewa/Ottawa/Laguna girl while in VISTA on the Navajo Nation. She holds a BA in music from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, New York; an MA in piano accompaniment from Eastern Michigan University; and an MSW in social treatment from the University of Michigan. Her major piano teachers have been José Échaniz and Joseph Gurt. Further training has come from the Dorothy Taubman School of Piano in Amherst, Massachusetts; at chamber music camps at Interlochen, Michigan and Adamant, Vermont; and at numerous Suzuki workshops in Tennessee,New York, Wisconsin,Ohio and Matsumoto, Japan. She has taught at Suzuki workshops around the United States and Internationally. She is nationally certified as a Suzuki teacher trainer,is past president (2005-07) of the Ann Arbor Area Piano Teachers Guild, and is an active collaborative pianist and gardener.

Igor Ferreira

"...furiously and sublimely lyrical" - The Millbrook Independent, 2023

Brazilian-born pianist and tenor IGOR FERREIRA received his master’s degree in Piano Performance from the University of Hartford, under tutelage of Prof. David Westfall and Prof. Frederic Chiu. He has been live recorded for three years in the Brazilian TV show Segunda Musical on TV ALMG. He performed as a pianist in many national and international venues and festivals, including the inaugural concert of the Oficina de Artes Narcio Rodrigues, a new integrated cultural space in the city of Itapagipe, Brazil. Also, played at the Festival de Maio, Belo Horizonte/Brazil, at the 90th birthday of Brazilian legendary composer Edino Krieger (1928-2022), with the honor of having the composer in the audience.
As a lyrical tenor, Mr. Ferreira was recently a soloist with the Manchester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, with the Crescendo Chorale and Orchestra, with the Hartt Symphony Orchestra and Hartt Choirs. He also performed in the Hartt Chamber Chorale assisting the tenor section. He was also a tenured member of the Coral Lírico de Minas Gerais (CLMG) alongside Minas Gerais’ statal orchestra (OSMG), performing symphonic-choir music and titles such Carmen, Lucia de Lammermoor, Porgy and Bess, La Traviata, Rigoletto, The Flying Dutchman, Norma and many more. He also performed with the choir in the inaugural concert of the Sala Minas Gerais, that houses the Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais (OFMG).
This diversity in formation has made Mr. Ferreira an accomplished teacher, who held a private piano studio for 20 years. He was a Piano Clinician teacher of the Hartt Suzuki Summer Festival 2022 and at Green Mountain Suzuki Institute in 2023.  Some of his students have been awarded in Brazil and internationally. Many of them were accepted in top-rated Brazilian universities, being placed first in some of the admission processes. As a member of the Suzuki Association of Americas, he has been certified in Suzuki Teacher Training with Prof. Sachiko Isihara. Mr. Ferreira served as faculty at the Hartt School (University of Hartford), and currently has joined the Suzuki Music Schools (Westport) as a piano and voice instructor.